Community governance in rural villager resettlement neighborhoods in China: rural-urban divide, civic engagement, and state control

In China, to meet the demand of expansive urbanization, the state expropriates rural land from village collectives and offers resettlement arrangement to landless villagers. The aim of this study is to advance our understanding of the community governance in government-designated resettlement neighborhoods in Chinese cities. By employing participatory observations and key informant interviews with community association staff and resettled villagers in four neighborhoods in Shanghai, this research documents and evaluates an emerging multi-scalar civic coalition formed to maximize the capacity of community governance. The study finds that the new collation is maintained through strategic networks, information exchange, resource sharing, and reciprocal collaborations. Critiques of the regime spotlight its three shortfalls: the conflicts among regime partners which threatens the stability of the coalition; the justice issue behind differentiated standards that creates divides among community members; and the lack of citizen connection and support that questions the resilience of the regime.

Common types of Crowdfunding Models, Related Concepts and Its Impact on Business: A Brief Literature Review

Crowdfunding is one of the tactics of raising finance by asking a large number of people each for a small amount of money to support innovative business ideas like new projects via the internet through various models. However, how individuals demonstrate readiness or solicitation on strategic networks in a virtual environment is much less clear and there is no comprehensive overview of literature review on different crowdfunding models. The present review puts an attempt to address these gaps and explored the impacts and the foremost crowdfunding concepts like funder, project creator and platform. This is an independent article based on a bibliographic search conducted using electronic databases such as EBSCO, DOAJ, RESEARCH LIFE, EMBASE, and Google Scholar. The result disclosed that the most universally applicable models of crowdfunding websites are; the equity-based model, donation/social based, lending model, and reward-based model. Interestingly, the review revealed that the lending and rewards models are leading in terms of funds raised across the globe and mostly adopted by investors. It also indicated the rapid growth of crowdfunding is helping small and medium businesses to create job opportunities for young people despite an increasingly challenging environment and its negative impacts on business. Finally, the review recommends researching crowd-funding and the impact of social media in the changing modern technologies and the legality of crowd-funding platforms in various nations.

Impact of Collective Trademarks in Mexican artisanal cheesemakers

Processes related to Collective Trademarks (CTMs), and the state of social friendship, productive support, and strategic networks, were studied for three different artisanal cheesemaker groups: Queso Bola de Ocosingo with an inactive CTM, Queso de Poro de Balancán, with an active CTM, and Quesillo de Reyes Etla, with a CTM undergoing its negotiation process. The influence of negotiation and operation of CTMs as consolidation strategies of three Mexican artisanal cheesemakers was analyzed through a mixed investigation involving in-depth interviews, social network analysis, and quantitative information. The research indicated that networks are small with scarce interaction among the actors, and, where collective strategies have not been induced, the networks are more disconnected and show a higher proportion of isolated nodes. It is concluded that, when collective strategies come from external actors without the necessary accompaniment, they tend to fail because their actions are supported by temporal actors, impacting social relations among cheesemakers.

Governing displaced migration in Europe: housing and the role of the “local”

This article will explore the extent to which a focus on the ‘local’ can tell us something meaningful about recent developments in the governance of displaced migrants and refugees. Taking a multi-sited approach spanning cases in the south and north of Europe, we consider how the challenge of housing and accommodation in particular, a core sector of migrant reception and integration, can shed light on the ways local and city level approaches may negotiate, and sometimes diverge from, national level policy and rhetoric. While it can be said that despite variation, local authorities are by definition ultimately ‘always subordinate’ (Emilsson, Comparative Migration Studies, 3: 1-17, 2015: 4), they can also show evidence of ‘decoupling’ across geographies of policy delivery (Pope and Meyer, European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 3: 280–305, 2016: 290). This article traces how possible local variations in different European cases are patterned by ground-level politics, local strategic networks, and pre-existing economic resources in a manner that is empirically detailed through the study of housing.

SMEs strategic networks and innovative performance: a relational design and methodology for knowledge sharing

Purpose In the context of resource scarcity, the affiliation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to strategic networks has emerged as a fruitful path towards knowledge sharing as a reaction to fierce competition and with a view to enhance their innovative performance. In this framework, this paper aims to investigate the influence exerted by a specific relational design (i.e. types of strategic networks) and methodology (i.e. channels and content) of knowledge sharing on SMEs innovative performance. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire-based survey with 102 top managers of European SMEs in the industrial field was conducted from June to August 2019 and a partial least squares structural equation modelling technique was used. The database was initially filtered to ensure the adequacy of the sample and data was analysed using the statistics software package SmartPLS 3.0. Findings The results concluded that the structural model explains 38.5% of the variance in SMEs innovative performance, indicating the positive effects exerted by offline and online and by competitive knowledge sharing on the dependent variable. Research implications The study has both theoretical and practical implications in that it sets out a reference point for the key performance indicators for strategic networks structure, formation and development and, implicitly, for the selection of the most efficient relational design and methodology. Originality/value The pivotal originality elements reside in the advancement of a more comprehensive conceptual and structural model combining a two-fold operationalization of SMEs strategic networks (founded on business abilities or on the personality of the partner) and in the investigation of knowledge transfer processes at the inter-organizational levels within a context-centric approach.

Trust, Control, and Value Creation in Strategic Networks of SMEs

This paper investigates the role of trust and control in networks of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a focus on both their direct and interaction effects on value creation. To delve into the interplay between trust and control, we unpack control mechanisms into three different forms: output, process, and social control. Our hypotheses are tested on a sample of 58 Italian SME networks based on formal agreements. Results show that the competitiveness and sustainability of inter-firm networks require trust-based relationships among entrepreneurs. Additionally, the adoption of output control mechanisms reinforces the positive link between trust and value creation, whereas a substitution effect exists between trust and process control and, with limited significance, between trust and social control.

Why do network organizations fail?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine network failures and the main reasons why network organizations, intentionally developed by a group of actors to pursue specific goals, become unfruitful and fail in their goals and expectations of creating collective value. The goal of this paper is thus to contribute a better understanding of the reasons network organizations encounter problems in their dynamics that prevent them from reaching the expected outcomes. Design/methodology/approach The study is firstly based on a literature review finalized to identify the main variables considered as potentially impacting on network failures. Secondly, the paper is based on a survey conducted on 189 strategic networks that highlighted difficulties in achieving their goals. An analysis of the 24 questionnaires returned generated the results discussed. The empirical study concerns strategic networks intentionally created and signed by Italian SMEs according to a specific law designed to promote the development of inter-firm cooperation (“network contracts”). Findings The results of the research highlight the role of specific key items related to individual, structural, legitimacy, interaction and governance variables in explaining failures in network organizations. According to the data, failure can occur immediately before the network start-up, resulting in a blocked network or in a subsequent developmental stage, resulting in a dormant network. The empirical research demonstrated that the items affecting network failure differ between blocked and dormant networks. The authors explain such differences, considering them according to the expected goals declared by the two different types of networks. Originality/value The question of why networks fail is relevant in times of disruption and digitalization when new forms of organization are needed to link businesses and various stakeholders and thereby develop innovative and sustainable ideas for an entrepreneurial future. However, very few studies have examined network failure. The study contributes to this field of research by investigating the dynamics of networks intentionally developed to reach shared goals. The findings can be useful to both companies that decide to start up a strategic network and the policymakers that promote, finance and monitor inter-firm collaboration.

Die Strategie der Vernetzung

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) represents workers' and employers' organisations and other actors of organised civil society in the EU. Its profile of actors and functions in the European multi-level and multi-actor system has not yet been examined. This monograph fills this gap by contrasting the contractual integration of the EESC with its effective participation in the EU policy cycle. The study analyses the EESC's interaction with other political actors at various levels within and outside the EU. The author shows that the EESC has formed strategic networks in order to be perceived and used as an interface between civil society and EU institutions.